the ship

day 452

I am sorry to record the first mate has apparently gone mad like many of the others. It is regrettable; he was a likeable fellow and a hard worker. The captain long ago locked himself in his ready room, endlessly playing with and fitting together educational toy construction sets in bright but meaningless shapes, singing bright cheery yet odd songs that would cause a cold chill across the bravest man’s spine, for the captain, until now, was a right serious, even dour man, not prone to humor or even a smile on his weathered face, none had seen such. Aye, perhaps meaningless shapes to the rest of us, they were, but when the first mate saw them, the shapes, the captain’s handiwork, through a murky porthole, he backed away, his wide eyes rolling in his head, clutching his grimy hat to his chest, kneading it as if for all the world his hat would save him somehow, white froth appearing at his parched lips, nonsensical sounds burbling from his mouth. We did what we could for him, bound him to a chair so he would not hurt us or the others. There was nothing else we could do. No one else peered into that porthole. In fact, as now the leading officer, for whatever horror such may indicate in my dismal future, I immediately ordered the porthole covered up with a table top salvaged from the kitchen… the sailors who did the task took care to carefully look away across the gray tossing sea as they hammered the table top across the accursed porthole, some even blindfolding themselves as an extra measure of caution. There is a despair settling on the crew. The first mate’s eyes have gone totally white now. We do not know what he sees now as he stares blindly into madness, spittle dribbling out the corners of his gaping mouth as he forms soundless words over and over again, and, truth be know, we never want to know.

day 458

I fear for the ship. It has been so long, too long, since we’ve been to port and there are so few of us left. There are maintenance issues. The satellite uplink failed two days ago and the food generator seems to be cranky. Pump Number Two continues to purge the lower deck. The leak has not been discovered yet. We are not sure there is a leak. It is a mystery. There are many unexplained mysteries on this dark voyage. We spend our days staring to the north, hoping for land, hoping for any sign of land, I claim there is none because we have sailed off, May God Have Mercy on Us, into some godforsaken endless sea, a sea of no end, an ocean hell, if there is such a thing, if there is Hell – and I am sure of it now – we have found it, notably, it’s not on our maps and the electronic maps have nothing to indicate, and the GPS readings have made no sense for months. I do not mention these concerns to the crew. As officer, I must keep their morale up. I must appear concerned but prudently reasonable. In any case, it doesn’t matter. It’s clearly all the captain’s fault. Hearing no more of his maddening faint singing from behind the closed door, only an eerie silence from his ready room, we eventually crashed the heavy timber door and found what he had been up to all this time with the toy construction sets of bright primary color wooden spools, sticks, and plastic blocks. It was immediately obvious when we burst through the door and several of our mates had to back away with sharp intakes of breath, to run away, scamper, to the far end of the ship, some breaking down and crying and whimpering uncontrollably. We do not hold it against them. Aye, some even collapsing to fetal positions against the wall planks, it’s come to this, strong sea-faring stalwart men reduced to this unfortunate state. They will be okay in time, I am sure of it. I myself wavered and felt the dark tide of insanity ebb at the crumbling shores of my mind but, just prior, it should be recorded, I had strongly fortified myself with the best Scottish whiskey from the captain’s closet, a goodly measure, and somehow managed to stand where I stood in that doorway at that moment which I wish to forget forever, albeit weaving a bit as bright sparkling tears rolled down my sad, weary face.

From the November 2, 1999, weekly blip. This is a chapter in a longer narrative. Some day, the rest will be re-posted. But right now, the editors and writers are too nervous to do that. Which is why they drink and smoke too much. Well, that’s one reason. But really, how much is too much? This is explained in the next chapter which hasn’t been posted yet. Or has it.

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Any resemblance of anyone in these fiction stories and seemingly disassociated ramblings about anybody living, dead, or in altered states is purely coincidental, all the character names are absolutely made up or chosen from thin air, products of overworked minds, figments of our imaginations, just a coincidence, stuff that occurred to us while driving to work or standing in line at the grocery store, above reproach, maybe a bit o’ satire now and then if we knew how to write satire, clearly an accident, we have no clue, ask our therapist, buy a Texas Lottery number, plant a tree, not our fault, we have no idea what happened, we were in Lonesome Town at that time or some other place, who knows, we don’t know, no one knows, and if we did know, we’d write a story about it. Written by Arden Henderson.

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